Head baseball coach Mike Davidson and head basketball coach John Wiley share some of their most memorable moments involving Danny Poplawski from his years of playing sports at The Overlake School. Davidson was an assistant varsity basketball coach when Poplawski was a freshman.

BASKETBALL

Mike Davidson: “When Danny was a freshman we went to the state tournament for the first time in school history. In the first game out in the (Sun) Dome in Yakima, he came in off the bench and on his very first touch he pulls up at the top of the key and shoots a three, and misses it by three feet. We’re playing somebody local and their crowd is just raining stuff down on him. We get a stop and on the very next possession, the same freshman kid, same shot, same spot, he shoots and knocks it down. I always knew that was the sign of a special kid, even as a freshman in that situation he wasn’t going to be cowered.”

John Wiley: “As much as I hate to remember it, the best I ever saw him play was this year’s Senior Night against Cedar Park. I think he scored 23, but it was the way in which he scored them. He hit shots from so far beyond the three-point line, past NBA range, and then his last play of high school was my favorite play. It was halftime and we’re up 31-24, and you look at Danny who has 19 points. In their locker room, going into the second half, it’s going to be all about stopping this kid. They come out and Danny gets the ball, and they’re all over him in front of our bench, and he just buries a 23-footer and gets fouled. He hits the free throw, and that four-point play was the last points he scored in high school, because he took the head injury about a minute later. Talk about a way to go out. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him drop 40 that night, but unfortunately it came to such a grinding halt, and our season did essentially go along with him.”

BASEBALL

Mike Davidson: “We were in a game we really needed against Cedar Park in his junior year at Inglemoor, and it’s late in the game, sixth or seventh inning, and he’s been kind of scuffling the whole day, and launches into a ball. He puts it off the facing of the football stadium, down the left-field line but foul, to go to 1-2 in the count. We really needed that one, and the classic thing is when you go hit a home run foul you always strike out. Danny came back the next pitch and took a ball out of the yard the opposite way, and we win that game. It gives you a sense that he’s a mentally tough kid.”